NASA is landing Bennu asteroid sample in Utah

One morning this fall, as the sun rises over the Wasatch and Oquirrh mountains, the NASA spacecraft OSIRIS-REx will jettison a capsule it’s hauled across space for seven years towards Earth. Its destination: Utah.

The capsule, not much larger than a truck tire, is carrying what NASA officials hope will be the first U.S. sample taken from the surface of an asteroid. Entering the Earth’s atmosphere somewhere off the coast of California, the capsule will hurtle east toward Utah’s northwest desert.

The journey from the surface of asteroid Bennu will have been 200 million miles, NASA leaders say, with the flight lasting more than two years.

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